William Phillips

William Phillips (1731-13 May 1781) was a Major-General of the British Army during the American Revolutionary War, commanding artillery units under John Burgoyne at the battle of Fort Ticonderoga in 1777 and the battle of Blandford in 1781.

Biography
William Phillips was born in 1731 in England, and he attended the Woolwich Academy and joined the royal artillery of the British Army. Phillips served in the Seven Years' War, fighting at the battle of Minden and having a great reputation. At the start of the American Revolutionary War, Phillips was a Colonel, and in 1776 he was promoted to Major-General and sent to command the artillery in Quebec under John Burgoyne. Phillips became the commander of Burgoyne's artillery during the Saratoga Campaign in 1777, supervising the fortification of Mount Defiance over Fort Ticonderoga and the subsequent taking of the fort. Phillips was captured in the battle of Bemis Heights when Burgoyne finally surrendered, and in 1780 he was traded for Benjamin Lincoln. Henry Clinton sent him from New York to join Benedict Arnold's loyalist army in Virginia, and he defeated the Marquis de Lafayette at the battle of Blandford near Petersburg before he died of illness at a house in Petersburg, shortly after an artillery shell killed an African-American servant named Molly. Phillips and Molly were buried together to prevent identification.